


Ghosted

by parkernoir



Category: Champions (Comics)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Champions Vol. 2 (2016), I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Mutual Pining, and tortured, bc i sure do, mya is a monster, remember when miles got kidnapped, these stupid stupid kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-24 15:26:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22000153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parkernoir/pseuds/parkernoir
Summary: The worst time to get left on read, Sam will soon learn, is right after you send a short and sweet love confession to your best friend. Don't worry, though: Miles didn't mean to leave Sam on read, he just got kidnapped and tortured for two weeks. You know how it is.
Relationships: Sam Alexander/Miles Morales
Comments: 10
Kudos: 43





	Ghosted

**Author's Note:**

> shoutout to mya . ugly ass

Miles was gonna drive Sam crazy. Every single second they were together, Sam felt like he might burst or break into a million pieces or cave in on himself or start hugging Miles and never stop or say something stupid like all the things he was thinking. In all honesty, Sam was the tiniest bit glad Miles had left the team, because the tiny moments- Miles’ gloved hand brushing Sam’s, Sam holding onto Miles’ wrist as they flew towards the horizon, the jokes about Miles’ girlfriend from another dimension, the way Sam could never tell if Miles was looking at him or not through the mask, the way Miles’ voice quirked when he was about to tell a joke, the way his shoulders rose when he was holding in a laugh-

Sam was seriously worried that he was gonna go grey at the young age of seventeen. Wait. Was that possible? Sam hurriedly typed his question into Google. 

  
  
Oh Jesus, it was possible. 

  
  
After a few minutes of desperately checking his hair in his bathroom mirror and confirming he was safe (for now), Sam went back to staring at his empty text box. The blue cursor blinked at Sam, mocking him for taking so long to respond to Miles. 

  
  
They’d been joking around, sending dumb pictures and jokes back and forth for a good hour. Sam’s stomach was still sore was laughing at Miles’ messages, which was saying something, because Sam had a killer six pack with tons of muscles that rarely got sore. 

  
  
Miles was the only person that could make Sam laugh like that. Pure, unreserved laughter that shook his whole body and made his legs kick up in the air involuntarily and made Ms. Marvel ask him if he was choking to death. Of course his friends made him laugh, sometimes to the point where he couldn’t breathe, but only laughter caused by Miles could make Sam feel warm and fuzzy in the dead of winter. 

  
  
Blegh. This crush was turning him into a crappy poet. 

  
  
The conversation had lulled. Sam’s thumbs hovered over his keyboard. Occasionally, they’d type a few half-formed words, and then spam the backspace until everything was gone. Maybe he wasn’t a crappy poet, after all, ‘cause he was clearly no wordsmith. 

  
  
_Just tell a joke, or something_. 

  
  
Nothing funny came to mind.

  
  
The corners of his mouth hurt from the grin that split his face in two and still lingered as a soft smile. 

  
  
Something came to mind. But it wasn’t very funny. 

  
  
Sam imagined his hair going grey and his thumbs moved of their own accord. Typed what felt right. 

  
  
_‘I really, really like you, Miles.’_

  
  
He pressed send before common sense to kick in. Something tightened around his throat and didn’t let go. 

  
  
_Read at 2:13 PM._

  
  
It was surprising that Sam couldn’t hear his ribs cracking, with the intensity his heart hammered against them with. Maybe if his bones snapped he’d be able to call Miles for help. God, his brain never let him know peace. 

  
  
Two minutes passed and Miles didn’t respond. Okay. That was fine. Maybe Miles was just trying to process the message. Take it all in. That was fine. Sam waited patiently (sitting hunched over on the edge of his bed, leg bouncing like it was keeping him alive) for the typing bubble to show up on Miles’ end. 

  
  
It didn’t.

  
  
An hour passed with nothing. Okay. _Don’t freak out_. There were several reasons Miles might not be responding that didn’t immediately mean ‘he hates you now and you screwed everything up’. Like… he could be fighting crime. There could be a big alien invasion or something. Maybe he fell asleep. Or… or had to wash the dishes, or… 

  
  
Sam couldn’t help himself. ‘ _Miles?’_ _  
_

  
That message didn’t even earn the _Read_ notification. 

  
  
“Oh, come on,” Sam groaned, tossing his phone down onto his bed and standing. After running his hands through his hair, he picked his phone back up, flicked on the ringer, and turned it alllll the way up. Just in case Miles got back from… racing go karts or whatever and texted Sam back. Texted Sam something like ‘omg I like you too we should go on a date and hold hands’, or ‘wtf ew’, or ‘Mwahaha this is the evil Doctor Doom and I have forced Miles into a coma and the only way for you to wake him is to kiss him on the lips like in sleeping beauty’.   
  


One of those was light years more accurate than the others, unfortunately. Sam dropped his phone back onto the bed and ran to the bathroom, suddenly feeling ill. He shoved past Amadeus, who asked him a question that sounded like static to Sam’s ears. 

Thankfully, he didn’t actually have to throw up- just being dramatic- so he ended up sitting with his back to the bathroom wall, eyes squeezed shut. 

  
  
“Why would you send that, man?” He mumbled to himself, staring into the mirror. “You freaked him out. You freaked him out forever.”

  
  
After his mini breakdown in the bathroom, Sam checked his phone again. Nothing. Nada. Not even a _Read_. It had been two hours. 

  
  
Sam laughed in exasperation, trying to tell if he could feel the Earth shifting. 

  
_  
_ _‘Hey I get it if that freaked you out or whatever and I’m sorry but could you respond or something before I have a heart attack’_

_  
_  
No, that was too… that wasn’t right. 

  
  
_‘Hey man I get it if you don’t wanna be friends or’_

_  
__  
_ No. Sam didn’t want to give Miles the option of declaring their friendship over. Sam didn’t know if he could handle that. Evidently, he couldn’t handle much, like the exact way Miles’ pupils blended into his irises in the shadows and the way his eyes turned to dark oak pools in the sunlight.   
  


_ ‘Where’d you go man’ _

Nope.

_ ‘Where’d you go, man?’  _

That worked. 

  
Sam didn’t sleep easy that night. 

\---

Miles just wanted to go home. 

\---

Sam woke up thinking of Miles- nothing new there- and immediately reached for his phone. It wasn’t on the nightstand, where it usually was. Um. Something in Sam’s stomach flipped. Sam pulled his covers down, pointedly ignoring his Spidey sleep shirt, and rummaged around in the sheets. No phone.  _ Why now? _ Frustration grew in Sam’s chest as each small search for his phone turned up empty. Finally, he spotted it in the gap between the side of his bed and the wall.

That’s what he got for sleeping in Miles’ bunk.

His first attempt to reach the device left him with a sore arm. It wouldn’t fit down the crack. “God damn-” Sam cursed, sliding out of bed and hooking his fingers underneath the frame. After a good amount of desperate pulling, Sam dove back onto his bed and yanked his phone out of the abyss. 

  
  
“Come on, come on,” Sam begged, clicking the power button. Nothing happened. Dead. “Are you-” his pillow got a few lackluster smacks. Blinking the sleep out of his eyes, Sam clumsily plugged his phone in. Well, that was a five-minute wait for it to boot back up. 

  
  
He thought about how much Miles probably hated him the entire time (and changed into an old baseball-themed tee so he didn’t have to look at a spider emblem everytime he looked down). 

  
  
Sam’s notification center was crushingly empty when his phone finally turned back up. He suppressed an angry shout, settling for slamming his phone into his earlier-abused pillow. 

  
  
_‘Good morning’_

He didn’t send it. 

\---

A week passed. An entire week. With nothing. Man, life was so  _ empty  _ when you weren’t a superhero. All that happened was school and your best friend ignoring you because you spilled the beans about your massive, soul-crushing crush on him. It was one of the first times in Sam’s life that he could say school was the only thing he had going from. And he had just gotten a D on a math test. 

  
Miles could’ve helped him with both of those. He _would’ve_. If Sam hadn’t gone and ruined everything. 

  
  
He refrained from sending any more messages. Sam would rather die than sound even more clingy than he already had. Still, he spent what felt like hours with his thumbs hovering over his untouched keyboard, fantasizing about things he could say and things he wished he could take back. 

What did Miles think of him now?

Just some stupid kid.

  
  
Sam knew he wasn’t up to par with the rest of the Champions. He was nowhere near their strength, or willpower, or smart… power. Ms. Marvel was a natural leader, Riri and Amadeus had minds with capabilities Sam couldn’t even comprehend, Amka got right up after being knocked down at incomprehensible speed, Scott was (is?) this famous X-Man, Red Locust had a drive Sam couldn’t possibly harness, and-

And-    
  


What the hell had Sam been thinking, telling Miles he liked him? Miles was friends with some of the most talented and powerful people in the universe, and Sam had the audacity to think Miles might find him even the least bit likable- the dude who was just a useless kid without his dumb helmet. Sure, Nova was cool, but he wasn’t smart or particularly charismatic or assertive. He just flew around. 

Sam couldn’t even do that without his helmet. 

  
  
So no wonder Miles wasn’t responding. 

\---

There was so much pain. So many different varieties- longing, burning, freezing, slicing, cutting, heaving, ripping, tearing, screaming, whimpering, sharp, dull- it all blurred together into a long chain of a singular, aching, white-hot pain that tore through him each time he breathed. It hurt so much he begged for them to kill him. He begged to go home.

Miles missed his family. He missed his friends.    
  


He wondered if they were thinking of him. He wondered if they were looking. 

  
  
He wondered what Sam was up to. 

\---

The Nova Twitter account never got that many notifications. Generally, there was a staggering inflow of likes and retweets, and the occasional DM. Back when he still… back when he still belonged in the Champions, notifications would practically flood his lockscreen after battles and public service stuff. Eventually, Sam had to shut off Twitter notifications for that account, because it drowned out notifications from Mi- that were more important. 

  
  
So it was weird when a big, red '99+' appeared in the corner of his Twitter app, Sam was a little taken aback. He was a bit grateful for it. At least some people want to talk to a version of Sam, even if Miles wasn’t one of them. 

  
  
Of course, every single notification was about Spider-Man. Go figure.

  
  
_‘Have you guys seen Spidey anywhere???? @officialnova @officialchamps’_ _  
_

_ ‘Yo @officialnova, wheres spiderman???’ _

_ ‘has anybody else noticed spider-man hasn’t been around recently? the one w the black and red suit’ _

_ ‘arent @otherspidey and @officialnova friends or smth? maybe nova knows where spideys at’ _

Sam swallowed, scrolling through his notifications. Apparently, Sam wasn’t the only person Miles was leaving on read. 

  
  
Stomach turning, Sam walked into the rec room. Amadeus and Riri were playing some first person shooter. Sam hadn’t heard of it. _You’re stalling, man._

“Hey, Sam,” Ms. Marvel called casually from her spot on the couch. 

“Hey.” He said. Dumbass.  _ You were supposed to ask about Webhead.  _

_ Maybe Miles had told them all about what Sam had said and this was all one big prank to prove to him how unwelcome he was and how stupid he was and-  _

_  
__  
_ Deep breaths. 

  
  
“Has anybody heard from Spidey lately?” Sam asked. His voice shook ever so slightly.   


  
The room went quiet. 

  
  
“We had been hoping you were aware of his whereabouts, Sam.” Viv said. Sam jumped. Jesus, she came out of nowhere. 

Wait, what? 

“You guys haven’t-” Sam swallowed and crossed his arms. “You haven’t heard anything from him?”

“No,” Ms. Marvel said. “Not since he left.” 

  
  
Sam wanted to scream. 

Instead, he stalked back to his room and punched a pillow a few times. 

Although it made his chest feel empty, Sam scrolled back through his and Miles’ last conversation for any kind of clues as to what happened, but he was too  _ stupid _ to pick anything up.  _ Useless. _ Sam scrolled back through the entire last week.  _ Useless.  _ His eyes began to well up as nothing turned up.  _ Useless.  _ Miles had been so distant.  _ Useless.  _ He’d cut everyone off and wouldn’t tell them why.  _ Useless.  _ At first, Sam had just assumed he’d done something wrong.  _ Useless.  _ Maybe that wasn’t the case. 

  
  
“Useless,” he told himself, squeezing his phone as tight as he could. Nothing cracked. Nothing snapped. Miles was missing. Miles was gone. Miles was wonderful. Miles was bright. 

  
  
Miles was Miles was Miles was Miles was Miles was

\---

It was his dad and Uncle Aaron that saved him. Of course it was. Deep down, Miles had always known it would be them. Maybe not working together, and certainly not from whatever horrible place Miles was in, but Dad and Uncle Aaron were always the ones that saved Miles from the darkest, most dangerous places. 

  
  
Apparently, in some occasions, that was much more literal. 

At first, Miles thought it was another trick. That  _ they _ \- whoever they were- were allowing Miles to believe that he was escaping again, just to pull him back into captivity, so far away from home. But then his dad cupped Miles’ face with his hands, and Aaron appeared in the corner of Miles’ vision, and they brought him home. 

  
  
Not without a fight. (Never without a fight.)

_ “They… they did experiments on me, Dad.”  _

_ “Hey. Hey. I’m here, Miles. I’m here. And your mother is on her-” _

_ “You found him! Oh my God, papa, what happened to you?” _

_ “Ma? I want to go home.” _

\---

Two weeks after Miles stopped responding, Sam’s phone buzzed. Sam jumped when he got the notification. His text tone for Miles was an awful recorder version of the Spider-Man theme song. 

  
  
It was the best thing he’d ever heard in his entire life. 

  
  
Sam jumped up from where he was doing homework on the couch, swiped up his phone (knocking over his school binder in the process, causing paper to scatter everywhere), and practically flew to his bedroom (God, he wished). His phone kept ringing the Spidey theme, over and over and over again as messages from Miles (!!!) flooded in.

  
  
He tapped on the notification and read the long series of messages as fast as he could, heart swelling. 

_ ‘Hey, dude. I’m back’ _

_ ‘I uhhhhh’ _

_ ‘I got caught up in some trouble’ _

_ ‘Bad trouble’ _

_ ‘Really bad trouble’ _

_ ‘I’m at home right now’  _

_ ‘I wanna see you’  _

_ ‘And talk’ _

_ ‘About stuff’ _

_ ‘You know where I live’ _

_ ‘See you’ _

Huh. Maybe Miles wasn’t any more of a poet than Sam was. 

_ ‘See you soon, Miles’ _

\---

It took Sam way too long to hype himself up to knock on the door. And when he did end up knocking, nobody came to answer it. So, Sam pounded on the door several times with the side of his fist. That time, the door gently swung open. 

“Oh. Uh. Hi, Miles’ dad. I’m Miles’... friend?” Sam tried, although he wasn’t sure if they were friends anymore. The concept make his blood run cold. 

Miles’ dad stopped and thought for a moment. He looked tired. His forehead was wrinkled with worry. “Yeah. Okay. Let me go get him. He’s in his room. Come on in.” He said after a long while and a deep breath.    


  
Sam stepped into their house and kicked off his shoes. “Should I…” he asked, pointing to his sneakers. 

Miles’ dad blinked. Then cleared his throat. “You can just put those by the door.”

Sam complied. His throat felt like it was full of water. Miles was here. Somewhere in that house. Breathing and thinking about Sam. Probably not the way Sam thought of Miles, but thinking nonetheless. 

“Miles! Your...your friend is here!” Miles’ dad called up the stairs, and the silence that followed after almost drove Sam crazy. 

  
  
“Sam?” Came Miles voice a few moments later, and Sam almost melted on the spot. That was Miles’ voice. It sounded raw and broken, but it was there. 

Miles’ dad was looking at him for confirmation. Sam coughed. “Yeah,” he called back. “It’s Sam.”  
  
“Come up here, man!” Miles shouted, and Sam didn’t have to be asked twice. He bounded up the stairs two at a time, heart on his sleeve and somehow also in his stomach.   
  
Miles’ door was cracked open. Sam’s knew it was his because nobody else would have a Nova sticker on their door. 

Sam pushed it open.   
  
Miles was sitting on his bed, cross legged. Miles. For real. Miles Morales, the- and maybe this was a little dramatic- love of Sam’s life, sitting on his red and black checkered covers; wearing a tee-shirt, shorts, and Nike socks; leaning back on his hands. He had bandaids all over his skin. 

“Hey,” they both said at the same time.   
  
“Hi,” Sam tried again, but Miles said it unanimously with Sam again.   
  
They both started laughing. Man, Sam had missed that sound more than- maybe not more than anything. That was pretty extreme. Sam missed a lot of things. But right then, with Miles right in front of him, his laugh was definitely up there. 

“So,” Miles began, once he’d caught his breath. “Basically, I… got kidnapped.” He rubbed the back of his neck. 

“Oh, dude,” Sam breathed, carefully settling down on Miles’ bed. Like Miles might kick him out if he crossed any invisible lines. 

“Yeah. Dude.” Miles snickered. “I… don’t really wanna talk about it.” The mood of the room dropped from mellow, calm sunshine to overcast. 

  
  
“That’s all good. We can talk about whatever,” Sam said, and then stiffened. “Uh, so-”

“Did you mean that?” Miles blurted, head snapping up to meet Sam’s gaze. 

_ Kill me now.  _ The world shifted on its axis. That definitely wasn’t good. Maybe Sam should ask Miles what an… axis shift would do to human life as they knew it. “Mean what?”

“That you-” Miles looked away. “What did you mean by it? By… what does that even mean, man? ‘I really, really like you, Miles’? Is that like- like a… ‘Wow, you’re an awesome friend’ thing, or a literal ‘You are a person and I like you’ thing, or… or a ‘I like like you’ thing?”

Sam froze. “Um…” he stared at the window next to Miles’ head. Would he die if he jumped out of that? Splatter all over the pavement. Rest in peace, Sam Alexander. He died doing what he loved, apparently: embarrassing himself in front of Miles Morales. “Did you just say ‘like like’?”

Miles’ eyebrows squished together. “No. Yes. Maybe. Why do you care? You know what I meant.”

Sam nodded. “Yeah.”

  
  
“Yeah, that’s what you meant, or yeah, you get what I’m saying?”

“Yeah.” 

“Give me something here, Sam.” Miles said, waving his hand back and forth across Sam’s field of view. 

“I like you.” Sam said, body on fire. 

“For real?” Miles asked, hand slowing in its movements but not stopping. Like it was stuck going back and forth. “Like like?”

“You know, you’re supposed to be smart,” Sam said, catching Miles’ wrist in his palm. His fingers closed around it. “But you keep saying ‘like like’.”

Miles stared at his captured wrist. “Why are you so caught up on ‘like like’?

“Because I-” Sam let go of Miles’ wrist. “Because I like like you.”

Miles blinked. There was a scar on his left eyelid. Sam wished he could just wipe it away. “I… wow. Okay.” He said slowly. “I… owe Viv twenty bucks.”

Sam’s heart plummeted. 

“I told her there was no way you liked me back, because you’re-” Miles gestured to Sam. 

“What?” His heart had begun to stupidly rise back up. 

Miles sighed, and somehow, even that tiny sound made Sam’s stomach do backflips. “I dunno how to describe it, man, you’re-”

“Nah, the other thing.” Sam said quickly. “You bet Viv that I wouldn’t like you… back?” 

Miles laughed sadly, and put his head in his hands. “She said it was ‘painfully obvious’. But I guess not. Cause you didn’t notice. I thought you noticed. And- wait. I like you. And you… like me.”

“I feel like we’ve already estab- oomf!” 

  
  
Miles was warm. And gave really tight hugs. The ones that constricted your lungs and smothered your vision, but you didn’t mind, because it was Miles and maybe, just maybe, he felt just as electrified by the contact as you did. 

“I think I’m getting the hang of this poetry thing,” Sam said into Miles’ shoulder, burying his face into the crook of his neck. He smelled like flowers and paint.

“What does that even mean?” Miles asked, squinting at Sam. 

“Nothing, Man.” Sam assured. He held Miles tighter, ignoring the scabs mottling his skin. “It doesn’t mean anything at all.”   
  


**Author's Note:**

> (my brain, immediately after writing for an already tiny demographic) we have to go nicher


End file.
